Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 4, 2013 -> 09:51 AM) Just gonna point out that you don't seem to have any idea how our welfare system works or any concept of the size and expense of the bureaucracy that would need to be created for these crazy ideas for your "public slaves." Is this directed at me?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 3, 2013 -> 09:48 AM) "owned by the public" pure ideology For #1, isn't that pretty much how WIC cards work already? Pre-loaded debit card that can only be used on WIC-approved items? WIC is a voucher system. At least it used to be when I worked at a grocery store in high school. Link was more like a debit-card. None have the "public knowledge" aspect Duke is advocating for. I agree with a lot of Duke's proposals. I think forcing people that receive welfare to go through audits is a good idea. If people are wasting money on bulls***, they should be warned about it. Welfare is about getting people back on track, not maintaining a lifestyle.

Been a bandwagon fan this year, but holy crap, what a game.

Illinois in the sweet sixteen. MARK IT DOWN.

Who ya Crappin', when on, is the best segment on radio. And I agree, IlliniKrush, normally is a really good listen. I jumped in in the middle of a segment last week and I think they were talking to his wife (maybe daughter?). I was laughing my entire metra ride home. Bernstein is an asshole and I think he's become more full of himself the last few years (though admittedly i've only listened for the last few years), but he keeps the "level" of sports talk pretty high by being that way. Guys calling into sports shows are generally god awful, but if there's a good discussion it can be great radio. Making fun of/dissing morons who call in keeps the conversation level as high as sports talk radio can be. Waddle/Carmen/Silvy, with Silvy being the lead, might be a good listen. I used to like Carmen and Silvy back in the day. I just don't think Carmen is a good lead. Too much humblebrag going on there.

I'm willing to roll the dice. This'll be a good opportunity to make the various government agencies more efficient. Cut the fat.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 1, 2013 -> 10:04 AM) The law is so popular with the citizens that it must be struck down! We must kill democracy in order to save it! This is, essentially, the argument he's making here. It's complete nonsense and it's not his role as Supreme Court Justice to be some super-legislator and strike down laws he thinks Congress doesn't have the balls to strike down. Does this law suddenly become more legitimate if the vote had been 90-10? 80-20? 70-30? In what world does that make any sense? Yeah, nobody in the Senate voted against it, and few in the House did. That's 100% great. Is it any surprise that, in a country where it's harder to be explicitly racist and where minorities are a growing demographic and have their voting rights guaranteed, that modern legislators don't want to vote against a popular bill that would cost them their position? That is the essence of democracy. Make unpopular votes, and you'll lose your office. I'm glad you see that it wasn't an analogy. So now it's just one of the many "entitlements" he doesn't like? So voting rights protections for minorities still remain a "racial entitlement," which is still an incredibly racist and stupid-as-f*** thing to say. And if he's just complaining about all those other "entitlements" and "handouts" that the blacks and mexicans get? Still racist, still dumb-as-f*** but now worse because he's Limbaugh on the bench. What scrutiny standard gets rid of this? Congress compiled a substantial record in 2006 on the history of discrimination and found it was still reasonable to single out certain states and counties. He's simply saying that, since he disagrees with that conclusion, the law should be unconstitional? What's the actual, legal argument Scalia is making here? There appears to be nothing but an incoherent, political rant, not dissimilar from his SB1070 dissent. I've thought for a while now that Thomas gets unfairly labeled as a Scalia tag-along, and this just makes it worse. While I rarely if ever agree with Thomas, he's a lot more respectable than the clown Scalia has deteriorated into. Christ, let's overreact a little more shall we?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 1, 2013 -> 09:37 AM) It's not analogy if he's talking about the law that's in front of them and citing the voting record on the law that's in front of them. That's just literally talking about a thing. Congress has the explicit authority to enforce the 15th amendment via "appropriate legislation." What is appropriate is a policy question, not a constitutional one, and even then, Section 5 is a perfectly rational method to address the problem. Congress went to considerable effort in 2006 to consider if this measure was still appropriate and necessary and found that it was. So long as this law is seen as an important and necessary law, it will and should remain difficult politically to get rid of. It simply is not the Court's role to make this determination. Liberal justices do sometimes usurp Congress's power, and sometimes I'm okay with the outcomes even if I'm not okay with the theory. But liberal justices don't pretend to be "originalists" or that the constitution is "dead," as Scalia does. Furthermore, the history of the Court's rulings on voting rights has recognized an enormous amount of deference to the legislature. Gutting the Voting Rights Act because it's politically difficult to "get rid of" would be the height of judicial activism. Fine, it wasn't an "analogy" but he was talking about it as one of many "entitlements" that he has issues with. He's talking about a general issue here that's not specific to section 5 only. And I don't think being an originalist has anything to do with it. We'll see what his opinion says (if he has one), but he can get rid of this based on a scrutiny standard pretty easily. You state the basic law that congress should be given difference in this area, but that's not absolute. And "gutting" the law? Come on. The vast majority of the country doesn't have to follow section 5 and those that do have their changes/recommendations denied less than .01% of the time. http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/051006VRAStatReport.pdf He's absolutely right that the fact that not a single member of congress voted no means they didn't even read the damn thing, they just approved it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 1, 2013 -> 09:19 AM) No, he wasn't making an analogy. He was making a s***ty and racist argument against a policy he doesn't like. He was talking about the case before him, which is about the Voting Rights Act. I'll grant you that his statements are more akin to a talk radio host than a judicial scholar these days, but there was no analogy here. If, at some point, the need for Section 5 goes away, then we can let our elected representatives determine that. If there will always be too high of a political cost for doing so (in e.g. Utah or "just ratified the 13th amendment" Mississippi, I'm doubtful), then it means that a law that the people want remains in place. Why does this become Scalia's decision to make? Why does the Court get to usurp Congress's power to protect voting rights and forever close off certain very effective measures? Judge "Dead Constitution Originalist" is making an argument that "times change" and that he should explicitly overturn a duly passed law with explicit constitutional support simply because he doesn't think Congress will ever not renew it. He wants to overrule Congress's considered judgement and determination to take away this "racial entitlement." Does he think the PATRIOT Act should be thrown out by the court because of the chosen name and broad support? Is there something else that the act designed specifically to protect voting rights should be called? How is this not an explicitly political and completely ajudicial argument? Forcing states to do something requires a certain level of scrutiny to be considered constitutional. If it's no longer necessary, and Congress continues to vote it through, then the Court is will within its right to determine the law is no longer constitutional. Liberal justices do this same s*** all the time - they "usurp" the role of legislators and you're fine with it because you agree with them. I don't necessarily agree with Scalia that section 5 isn't necessary anymore (although did he ever say this?), but I do agree with his point that the problem with these laws is that they're meant to be temporary, yet once enacted they become difficult politically to get rid of.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Mar 1, 2013 -> 09:10 AM) I don't know how Harry Teinowitz made it this long. That guy is the worst. Just about everything on ESPN 1000 is awful. I disagree with that, Waddle and Silvy is probably my favorite talk show in town. I enjoy B&B, and I like Mully and Guest (i.e., no Hanley- HE is the worst). CJH is just listening to a bunch of douchebags talk about how awesome they are.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 28, 2013 -> 05:42 PM) Yes, that "entitlement" to vote. You're talking about a bunch of irrelevant (but still silly) stuff in order to hand-wave away what he said, what he was talking about and what he is going to help do. He was making an analogy. He wasn't calling the right to vote a racial entitlement, he was talking about the various measures enacted by the government to deal with certain racial issues related to voting which may or may not be necessary anymore. His point was, at some point, the need for section 5 will go away, yet Congress will continue to extend it another 25 years because politically it would be suicide not to. He even referenced the name of the bill indicating that people reading a headline like "congressman X votes against extension of Voting Rights Act" will assume he/she is doing something negative. s***, even the news media coverage of the arguments spins it that way.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 28, 2013 -> 04:03 PM) Who gives a s***? What Scalia said was incredibly racist, not to mention completely incoherent. It's a god-damned mystery why 95% of African Americans didn't vote for Republicans when they keep reaching out to them like this. real f***in' head-scratcher. Lol, OMG he talked about entitlements based on race. THAS RAYCESS! Jesus.

It's got nothing to do with race, it has to do with "entitlements." If you give an inch, people demand a mile. This happens with everything the government ever "gives" - tax breaks, medicare and social security coverage, welfare programs, etc. As soon as the government decides it's going to fund something, the chances of it ever stopping that is incredibly small. This applies to the rich and poor, to white people or minorities, etc. I'm not sure how you guys don't see this. This is your parties bread and butter - Zomg! The Rich White Republican Land Owner is trying to take things away from you!! Don't vote for him! He doesn't care about you!

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 27, 2013 -> 05:54 PM) btw this was essentially the Romney campaign last year, and he got 47% of the vote. He got 47% with 95% of African Americans voting for Obama, so yeah, that makes sense.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 27, 2013 -> 03:51 PM) http://prospect.org/article/scalias-weird-vra-spat He's using the same language that O'Connor used in the affirmative action cases - here's a "necessary" evil and hopefully we'll one day get rid of it. And I think he's right that taking away race entitlements will be incredibly difficult going forward. Who's going to stick their neck out and tell a minority that money/benefits they receive from the government aren't necessary anymore?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 27, 2013 -> 06:37 AM) <!--quoteo(post=2764080:date=Feb 26, 2013 -> 08:42 PM:name=Jake)-->QUOTE (Jake @ Feb 26, 2013 -> 08:42 PM) <!--quotec-->Illinois only lost a single game in this conference one year, and it's because some bench player arsehole took PEDs or amphetamine salts or something Undefeated until, almost literally, the last possible second.

Tough to win away from home in this conference.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 26, 2013 -> 09:02 AM) He definitely referred to his pipe. Ha, well done.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/c...0,7138741.story Something will get done, but pro-gun activists obviously have all the leverage.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 25, 2013 -> 04:27 PM) What makes an award show "good?" Its an awards show, with mostly awards that we dont understand. Its always going to be boring. At least this year there wasnt a run away winner that everyone predicted. Outside of that at least Seth was funny and some of the actresses looked hot. Ricky Gervais and the recent Amy/Tina awards shows were good. I mean, good is relative obviously. We're talking about 3-4 hours of people taking themselves way too seriously (which is why Gervais was so amazing, he was making fun of the people in the room for that very reason).

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Feb 25, 2013 -> 12:02 PM) So a while ago i was taking a bath. Got done and went into our family room and started to see water dripping from the ceiling right under the tub. Touched the ceilig and poked a hole in it and a waterfall of water poured out. Just found out there is a 1" gape between the overflow drain pipe and the tube! Seriously, who installed this tub??? Is there any easy fixes that doesnt require me to call a plummer? Without pictures it's kind of tough to tell, but plumbing isn't very difficult. Just make sure you get the right cleaner/adhesive to apply before adding your PVC pieces. The bigger mess is you'll have to take out any wet drywall or you'll get mold.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Feb 25, 2013 -> 02:01 PM) Seth was the only decent part of the whole show last night IMO. Agreed, but that's not saying much. Too much singing, the audio was terrible, the ensemble presenter idea was terrible, and the whole show had a feeling of high school variety show quality. But really, people say this every year and it's NEVER been good. Once every 20 years you'll have a great/memorable Oscars, but there's so much f'n marketing behind the nominations/awards there's no legit surprises anymore. That's what made it great back in the day. McFarlane was what he predicted - mediocre. A couple of good bits (Flight reenacted with sock puppets, the Boob song, the Mel Gibson "what, you're on his side?" joke) but otherwise pretty meh. I guess as a host having some good bits but otherwise being forgettable is a good thing. So maybe a little better than mediocre.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 22, 2013 -> 03:15 PM) The faults with your comparison don't lay with the efficacy of the policies you support or oppose. If you want to argue that abortion is murder and that you approve of any measure that makes getting an abortion more difficult, come out and say it. Don't try to hide behind plausible deniability, this is exactly what this bill and many others set out to do. I put "murder" in quotes because I don't agree that conception=life, but I don't think it's viability outside of the womb either. There's a point where it begins and I haven't really made up my mind on that yet.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 22, 2013 -> 03:06 PM) But you yourself said that a majority of abortions are obtained by middle- or upper-class women, so poverty and education won't eliminate abortions. Your end goal is still the elimination of guns. That and the fact that we're talking about medical procedures and owning inanimate objects are two important distinctions. This is anectdotal, but I went to a predominately white middle to upper class high school and I knew several girls that had no idea what an abortion entailed other than no longer being pregnant. They had no idea about the sickness/pain afterwards or the emotional toll that a lot of women experience. And I'd venture a guess that a lot of women (and especially a lot of men) don't know the various developmental stages of pregnancy. Affluent white privileged folks like my wife and I were completely shocked that our kid had an audible and visible heartbeat at 6 or 7 weeks. That's the kind of education i'm talking about. That's information women SHOULD be given. Even if a good portion of them might already know that going in, some women don't.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 22, 2013 -> 03:04 PM) you should probably double-check your presumptions before you go throwing around "99.9%" or "100%" Oh please, i wasn't trying to by completely accurate. The point was in one instant you have a high probability of success of "murder," while in the other case you have very few cases of "murder" relative to the amount of gun owners/users.